THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING

THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING; Smith Barney summons the ghost of a haughty John Houseman in a revival of its 'timeless' ads.

By Stuart Elliott

Published: August 25, 1995

MCCANN-ERICKSON New York makes advertising for Smith Barney the old-fashioned way. They revive it.

In a landscape increasingly populated with comeback campaigns from the likes of Timex and Culligan International, Smith Barney will once again promote itself in the third-person plural: "They make money the old-fashioned way. They earn it." The theme, which still resonates in the imperious tones of the actor John Houseman, will return in a campaign that begins Monday.

"It's a timeless message and benefit to investors," said Jonathan B. Cranin, executive vice president and deputy creative director of McCann New York, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, which has been the Smith Barney agency since last August.

"I was shocked at all the unaided recall and awareness of the line," he added, referring to consumer response during tests and interviews. "There's no amount of money that could buy the equity it has."

Mr. Houseman uttered the theme in 18 commercials, from 1979 to 1986, created by the Ogilvy & Mather New York unit of the WPP Group, which handled the account from 1979 until McCann New York took over. Ogilvy New York's tenure spanned the days of Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Company; that firm's acquisition by Primerica, later the Group; a combination with Shearson Lehman Brothers, and some renamings.

Mr. Houseman helped turn the slogan into a catch phrase with his deliberately haughty delivery, echoing his performance as the curmudgeonly Professor Kingsfield in the TV series "The Paper Chase." The actor Leo McKern delivered the line in place of Mr. Houseman in 1987 and in 1988, the year Mr. Houseman died. A campaign featuring the voice of George C. Scott ran from 1989 to 1992.

"It was difficult with such success to replace the whole mystique" of the theme, said Toni A. Elliott, executive vice president and director for marketing and advertising at Smith Barney in New York, the nation's second-largest brokerage firm behind Merrill Lynch & Company.

And the theme is timelier than ever, added Ms. Elliott, who is no relation to this columnist, because "the concepts of hard work and trust are important today, as people are very serious about their money."

Though the new spots -- five initially and at least two more to come -- are as serious as those featuring Mr. Houseman, he is replaced by unknown actors who act as if they were channeling his plain-spoken, suffer-no-foolish-investors-gladly spirit.

Not that a celebrity replacement was not considered. Yet "no one fit the bill because everybody makes the comparison to Houseman," said Kevin Allen, senior vice president and group management director at McCann New York. Among the finalists: the actor Sam Waterston.

"Anyone friendly, reassuring, thoughtful, intellectual did not resonate" in the consumer tests, he added. "They wanted someone a little in your face. One even said, 'I don't want someone being wishy-washy about my money.' "

The actors are as far from wishy-washy as Mr. Houseman was from Pee-wee Herman. A steely woman admonishes viewers about brokers: "Don't let them tell you what all their clients are doing. You're not all their clients. Make them do their homework; make them earn their money."

In another spot, a confident man sniffs: "Before you hand them your money, examine their work ethic. Be certain they have one." And in a spot about long-term investing, a stern older man asserts: "Buy carefully, sell reluctantly. And do business with a firm that understands that sometimes an investor's greatest asset is patience." None of the actors say the slogan; it appears on the screen at the end of each commercial.

"You can have a great tag line," said Jay Mandelbaum, executive vice president for retail marketing and client services at Smith Barney. "But you have to back it up every day with the way you do business."

And there's a danger that consumers will perceive the actors as too hard, aloof and patronizing, attributes they permitted Mr. Houseman because of his stature and persona.

"We had that very concern," Mr. Allen said, adding that in tests, "one out of every 30" consumers responded to the actors along the lines of, 'Who do they think they are?' "

But when the consumers viewed some "soft takes," Mr. Allen said, "what you gained in pulling back in likability you lost in terms of strength and the ability to connect with John Houseman." Still, he added, the campaign will eventually include some commercials with actors who are less "polarizing."

Smith Barney plans to spend less than $10 million on the campaign through mid-December; a budget for 1996 has not been set. The commercials will run on broadcast and cable networks and local stations; there will also be print advertisements, primarily in newspapers.

Photo: In a new Smith Barney commercial, an actor playing a wealthy investor says: "Investing isn't a hobby. It's not something that you dabble in." (McCann-Erickson New York)